Auditor general highlights cases of alleged financial mismanagement

Manitoba's auditor general has released three new reports outlining alleged financial mismanagement in municipal and provincial branches of government.

Norm Ricard's trio of unrelated forensic audits were posted online Tuesday. The documents contain concerns about financial mismanagement in pharmacare, the Department of Sustainable Development, and the Rural Municipality of De Salaberry.

In his first report, the auditor general found a former pharmacare employee had processed "suspicious payments" over many years, adding up to more than $236,000. The employee was able to process unnecessary refunds and make transactions without proper documentation or oversight from supervisors, Ricard found.

The recommendations included forwarding the findings to the province's legal team and ensuring pharmacare supervisors review all manual transactions going forward.

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Manitoba's auditor general has released three new reports outlining alleged financial mismanagement in municipal and provincial branches of government.

Norm Ricard's trio of unrelated forensic audits were posted online Tuesday. The documents contain concerns about financial mismanagement in pharmacare, the Department of Sustainable Development, and the Rural Municipality of De Salaberry.

In his first report, the auditor general found a former pharmacare employee had processed "suspicious payments" over many years, adding up to more than $236,000. The employee was able to process unnecessary refunds and make transactions without proper documentation or oversight from supervisors, Ricard found.

The recommendations included forwarding the findings to the province's legal team and ensuring pharmacare supervisors review all manual transactions going forward.

In the second report, Ricard's team examined how cash was deposited and managed at the Thompson district office of the Department of Sustainable Development, where licences for hunting and angling, as well as timber permits and provincial park passes, are sold.

The auditors said they found an array of missing licences, valued at $33,000, and "a number of irregularities that suggest funds were being misappropriated," though they couldn't put a dollar value on the amount missing as the branch didn't keep proper documents, according to the report. A suggested improvement is strengthening Sustainable Development's inventory process.

Third, a concerned citizen called the auditor general's tip line about suspected fraud in the RM of De Salaberry. The tipster made five allegations about financial irregularities, two of which were substantiated. Another could not be concluded upon, the report stated.

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The audit reported 33,000 in unsupported credit card transactions from January 2010 to May 2014, among other issues.

Ricard provided eight recommendations to the RM, including developing a policy on local meal and entertainment expenses and ensuring chief administrative officers review all council members' expense claims.

"The findings in this report highlight what can occur in weak control environments and why risk assessments, and more specifically fraud exposure evaluations, are so very important," Ricard wrote.

The auditor encouraged any Manitobans with concerns about misuse of provincial assets to call the confidential citizen concerns line at 204-945-2169 or email citizens.concerns@oag.mb.ca.

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